Microsoft Upgrades BizTalk

By Maria Trombly | Securities Industry News | Nov. 4, 2002

Microsoft is releasing a new set of integration tools on Nov. 4 that work with its BizTalk server application. The new tools will go head-to-head against products from BEA Systems and IBM. According to Derek LaSalle, Microsoft's lead program manager for e-business servers, the enterprise edition of the Financial Services Accelerator is $25,000 per CPU-the same price as for the basic BizTalk product, which must be purchased separately.

However, LaSalle said, many companies already have BizTalk licenses. What the Accelerator does is add a focus on payments processing and capital markets trading, settlement and delivery processes. Built-in features include more than 90 document specifications, or schemas, which describe Swift and ISITC messages for payments, foreign exchange, securities trading and reporting.

"It's a Rosetta Stone," he said. "It allows you to handle the communication and transformation across the different protocols and formats." It can also manage and repair messaging and trade errors, he added.

According to LaSalle, several customers in the securities industry are already using the product, including two of the world's largest asset managers. Other financial services customers include Nordea Bank, the largest retail bank in Scandinavia, and the European Banking Association, which is using the product for payment processing.

Microsoft's Kenny McBride, global industry manager for capital markets, said that the company was not specifically planning to take market share away from BEA and IBM, and was responding to customer needs. "BEA and IBM just happen to be in the same scenario," he said, "And God help them, we're coming."

The product commoditizes the financial messaging space, said David Medeiros, an analyst at Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup. He added that the product "takes the pain out of complying with the new standards and, yes, it is in tune with current cost and resourcing pressures."

"It's definitely cheaper," confirms Sharyn Leaver, an analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research. "Their average deal size is much lower than some of their competitors."

The financial services industry has needed a product like this, she said, and Microsoft has already begun taking market share away from BEA and IBM. "Any time Microsoft comes into a market like this, it's going to be a player," she said. However, because BizTalk only runs on Windows machines, companies that are committed to Unix and Java-based systems might not find the Microsoft product very appealing, she added. "But there are few companies out there that are dedicated to only one application platform," she said.